


Microwave Meals For One and Sad Staring Into Disappearing Beer

by straeon



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straeon/pseuds/straeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert finds himself bored playing lord of the manor alone while Aaron is away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Microwave Meals For One and Sad Staring Into Disappearing Beer

Staring into the bottom of his pint glass, frowning from again starting to see the bottom through the golden liquid, Robert wondered how much time he could waste away in here.

It was quiet, so at least he wasn’t getting any hassle today (because of what he’d done, because of what Chrissie or whoever had done, because he was as smug as ever despite it all). It was probably _another_ memorial, or funeral, or trial, he didn’t know or care if there was a reason for the quiet, other than with Chrissie, Lawrence and, well, others, gone, he wasn’t busy. He supposed it helped the quiet that those who weren’t actually away weren’t around either. It took more than pulling someone out of a burning car to make some wounds heal apparently, but he’d just wait till they did; he knew he would be back on top of everything, not just at Home Farm, soon – he just had to wait for all this to pass…

The waiting he wasn’t enjoying though, which he resented when that was eating away at his time of lording over Home Farm, of savouring his ruledom over it all. He’d even tried drinking wine in the bath, because that was what rich, luxuriating people did, right? But Chrissie hadn’t let him put a TV in the bathroom (in any of the bathrooms, even?) and sitting there, stewing, just made the feeling of waiting press down on him even more. He considered actually replacing the water with wine but, for various reasons, he decided against it and returned to work. Which there wasn’t much of right now so after making a cursory few phone calls and emails, he drove his cars around a bit, changed his suit again, to one that brought out his eyes and new hairstyle, and ended up here.

He was bored, he realised. Usually, Robert would _do_ something, but he couldn’t really risk it now. He had had to be patient in the past, of course – he didn’t just become the success he was now by being beautiful, though it had certainly helped. No, he’d had to wait for some of his successes, but in that time he’d done things to speed it along, not always things he would have done otherwise, but now he only thought of them as necessities to get where he was now. He’d also always had a sche- plan, or two, going that would reward him with a pay-off sooner or later.

Right now? It was just waiting. And drinking. While waiting, for something, but he didn’t know what, which was even more frustrating. He chose to believe it would be something that would help him – Chrissie coming back, having seen the error of her ways in not begging him to come back to her, (Lawrence had already practically done just that) the trial being done with, business improving, etc etc etc. (Him being back on top, basically.)

But there was something else, that held him back from fully believing that, that gave him an unsettled feeling on the back of his neck, that made him grind his teeth and hold onto his glass tighter so he fingertips were white against it.

Robert shook his head. It was probably just the pair of eyes he knew had been glaring at him since he’d walked into the door, as much as he tried to sit with his side to the bar so he could avoid meeting them. But he knew she was there, enjoying the quiet in her own way of being perched on the other side of the bar shooting daggers that he probably actually felt on the back of his neck.

Taking a final swig from his glad, he turned to face her, kind of, only giving her a glance really. “Another.”

Chas narrowed her eyes into slits, making no movement other than to tap her fingernails on the surface of the bar frustratedly. It was the last thing she wanted, to serve this pig, and he knew that, and took some secret satisfaction from it, though he really had no other choice of bartender right now.

“Another, please,” Robert said finally, rolling his eyes, and Chas slowly relented, taking leisurely steps behind the bar as if she just happened to be walking this way and was graciously refilling his glass while she was there.

At least she got to regularly take his money. Hard earned by regularly screwing as many people as he could, she thought as she slammed the glass back down between them.

“So,” Robert said, before Chas was about to quickly depart. She sighed and made no attempt to hide how she now rolled her eyes at him.

“What?” She asked shortly.

“How’s… things?” Robert asked, unable to directly ask what he meant for some reason, as he uncomfortably glanced around the pub. There wasn’t really anyone much in here, just some… farmers, who he wasn’t sure even really lived here, but maybe the people who didn’t regularly cause life threatening disasters around here passed fairly under the radar.

“Things?” Chas repeated mockingly. “Like the blister I’m getting’ pulling pints for toerags like you all day?”

“Well, you chose the job,” Robert said, raising his eyebrows pointedly.

Taking his money didn’t really make up for how he became even smugger after a couple of pints, as impossible as that would seem. But then, Chas would’ve thought it was impossible to want to smack someone just from the smug, slimy sight of him. She deserved a medal for her restraint.

“No, I meant, how’s… you know, other people,” Robert continued, not finding it much easier to fake even this amount of pleasantness. “Y’know, as much as I’d want to, I can’t keep an eye on Diane, and Victoria and… as much as I’d want to. But you’re always hanging around her so…?”

“Yeah, Robert, you’re right,” Chas said with an equally fake tight smile. “I do care more about your own family than you do.”

“Hey-“

“If you paid any attention, you might know yourself,” Chas pointed out truthfully, dropping even the faked, sarcastic pleasantness.

“I do,” Robert insisted. “Just not as much as I’d like.”

“Don’t even bother,” Chas shook her head. “They’re doing fine, probably all the better for going without you.”

“Okay,” Robert nodded, grinding his teeth. “Glad to hear it.”

“Happy I could help,” Chas said with nod, turning to leave.

“Wait,” Robert quickly stopped her. “What about-“

“What?” Chas interrupted him, hopefully to quash his nerve, with an extra glare for good measure.

“How’s Lachlan?” Chas asked, simply to stop what he was about to say. “I mean, seeing as Chrissie and I are, y’know, friendly, and she’s away and he’s her son.”

“I dunno,” Robert shrugged. “He’s with her or… someone.” All Robert cared that he wasn’t underfoot for once at least. 

Chas shook her head, for a moment forgetting what her goal there had been.

“How’s… your Aaron?” He finally forced out, immediately uncomfortable as he heard the words aloud, knowing the added context to him even saying his name now in the village.

“Fine,” Chas only answered shortly.

“He’s in London, right?” Robert asked, leaning on the bar, needing to know despite himself, the alcohol in his system also working against his self-censorship.

“You know he is,” Chas said, so beyond fed up. “Somehow. Like you creepily find out everything.”

Robert nodded.

“If you’re thinking of-“ Chas started angrily.

“I’m not-“

“Don’t!” She finished emphatically anyway.

“I just wanted to know how he is,” Robert said with a defeated shrug.

“You know,” Chas said pointedly, and she took a step back toward him and leant in, as much as it made every inch of the skin of her body crawl. “Much better without you. And even better to get the hell away from you, I’m sure.”

Robert shook his head, looking away from her with a gulp.

“No, you know that’s why my son is across the country from me, alone, just cuz of you, just cuz of all you’ve done to him, how you’ve ruined his life, then ran away back to your big house, where they don’t even _want_ you, and let him deal with all that shit.”

“It’s not like your hovering, overprotective mother routine helps much,” Robert said bitterly. “You just push him away. Back to me, most of the time.”

She very nearly did smack him then, and he would’ve deserved it and she wouldn’t have regretted it. It was one thing she couldn’t stand in any way, in any form, the suggestion that she could be at all responsible for how he’d broken people down since he’d returned, treating everyone as dirt and his own selfish needs as the most important beyond anything.

And after everything, who pays for it all? Robert gets a trip over Europe and to stay in a hotel for a few nights but then stays, while her son had to run away from this all.

“Nothing ever sticks, does it?” Chas hissed bitterly. “Everyone else pays for the things you do, but not you, never you.”

“That’s not true,” Robert said, stony eyed back at her, some of the ways he’d had to pay flashing in his mind, liked being exiled from the village and the life he had then in isolation. Staying in London for a week or so hardly compared to his years away, fending for himself, sometimes in ways that would have been unimaginable for him when he was still a young man in the village. And now, his brother hated him, his wife hated him, his lover hated him, all that he’d tried to avoid over the last several months for it to all shatter down around him.

“I’m having to stare at your ugly mug all day, because you’re still somehow here, in your flash suit,” Chas paused to shake her head disbelievingly and give a loud, bitter laugh that turned the few heads scattered around them. “You’re still here, intact, which is so much more than you deserve for all you’ve done.”

With her eyes boring into him, Robert felt a momentary panic that she must know more about the things he’d done even, but no – if she knew, he’d know. It was just his own mind, going back to the things he’d actually done that made him undeserving of still being here, while others lay rotting six feet under.

But Robert didn’t _care_ what he deserved. He was here, alive, to get whatever he could, however he could. At least he didn’t waste it, being here, while others weren’t. And sometimes it was their own weakness that led there anyway.

Robert grabbed his coat and got up, abandoning most of his pint on the bar, glaring into Chas’s eyes, unsettling her. He dropped a handful of money from his pocket and left, as overconfident as ever, leaving Chas with about a thousand expletives she could hurl after him in her mind that she couldn’t even choose between in the end.

 

“Wasteful little git,” she finally grumbled as she cleared up his glass after him (and what she’d spilled over the bar slamming it down), keeping it clean for the punters left but still getting looks from them.

But as much as she wanted to dismiss him completely, that she was still fuming after he was thankfully gone showed her he’d got under her skin, as she figured he did with everyone that somehow let him stick around – or always went back to him again and again…

Chas sighed as she looked down at her phone. Truthfully, she wouldn’t have known if he was fine or not. As if he let her in, and with the distance between them, it was much easier to keep her out.

With _his_ stupid words still in her head, she tried to resist… Her fingers hovering over her phone, then pulling back away with a sigh but-

Fuck what he said.

She couldn’t possibly hover from this distance, a phone call couldn’t hurt. Besides, she knew her son – better than he ever could, she convinced herself. He needed people, he always did. He needed support, and reminders that they’d be there no matter what, and she would be there no matter what, and maybe right now, he needed to be told there reasons to come back. That he didn’t need to punish himself somewhere else for all the hurt someone else had caused.

It went to voice mail though.

Ducking into the back, she spoke quickly to him.

“Look, Aaron, I just need to know how you are, and when you’re coming back, so call me back, yeah? I love you. And so does Paddy and – Cain and Belle and everyone so. Come back soon as you can, yeah? Please? Or just call me – I’ve had a bad day, and I don’t have my son here to talk to about it. Bye, love. See you soon.”

 

In another, very different (much louder) bar, Aaron sighed at the screen of his phone in his hand.

He wanted to call her back, but he did want to stay here.

In another life, he could have just gotten away, from all those things that messed with his head, all the things in the village he just could not deal with. Everything that was just too overwhelming and for once, what he put first was trying to get control of what was going on in his headspace. At least he’d learned that again – his worth.

But then, he wasn’t just going away to anywhere. This wasn’t escaping to France for a new life, to be safe, to have a very nice, very fit boyfriend.

It was London. Which he didn’t even particularly like. It was far, it was the furthest he had an ex he was friendly with that he could reasonably visit.

But the other real reason he chose here, over anywhere else he could’ve stayed? It was because London was so alive. Or it looked it.

Look out any window and you see people running to their jobs, to the tube, to their lives. But when he met any of them in the eye, he knew they also felt that dead numbness inside, that they were always, constantly trying to stop the spread of.

Aaron was sure that wasn’t what London really was. He saw it as one of those stupid duck comparisons, but the complete opposite. But while he was hear, he could always hear cars at night, movement. No matter how dead or not the people were, they kept moving – the city kept moving, and the world kept moving. Unlike the quiet Dales night air that sometimes could be just the last thing he needed. That would just do his head in.

So this had been what he needed. Just to stop himself going back _there_ again. And it was for her, his Mum, in a way. She didn’t need to find him half dead in the cold again – he wasn’t going to let that happen.

But now? Well, he had to choose, obviously.

The issue was, again, in his head. Maybe staying away was good for everyone? But maybe it was his own fear that would keep him away, his own selfish protection of himself. But he could stay the same about going back. Was he scared to have his own life again? To let go of the people who would always set him right, and be ready to set himself right?

He honestly didn’t know what was best for him, but the distance had helped. Going back could easily put him back in the same situation, having to face him again, having to face everything he’d done (they’d done) while Robert turned away – from him, from it all.

Of course, he was going back. He sighed as he got up, to look for his friend and a quiet place to quickly call his mum back, just to tell her that he was okay. There was too much that was unfinished.

Whether it was all leading to what he feared, he still had to be there – he couldn’t ever really run away, or turn away.


End file.
